Have you had enough of paying inflated prices for inferior quality produce? Furthermore, are you equally infuriated by the leftist mass media's characterisation of this as a reflection of the rapacity of supermarket chains (who, in fact, are a prime example of a capitalist entity offering a public service for purely altruistic reasons)?

Because they like sitting around in the countryside all day, staring at the clouds and chewing on a piece of straw. Because they can't face the horrors of 'real life', a concept of which they are woefully unaware.

In recent years, articles have begun to surface in the media here in the UK about the crisis in farming, and the blame has been lain at the door of the supermarkets. Just how evil are these supermarkets?

They provide a one-stop source of food, breakfast cereals, beverages, household products, personal items, anything they can think of to make our lives easier. And all available from the one place, which is rarely more than a 30-minute drive from most people's dwellings.

Supermarkets also provide jobs to the most developmentally challenged people in our society, often nurturing them so far as to make them managers, or elect them to the board. Do we find retards in charge of energy companies, IT firms, advertising agencies or accountancy firms? But who has not been served by a retard at their local Sainsbury's, or Wal-Mart as Sainsbury's is branded in the US?

As for their supposedly aggressive pricing policy, which forces farmers to sell their goods at a loss...poppycock. How, how could this happen? Are farmers subsidising their livelihood from some vast stock of inherited wealth? Methinks not. They cry poverty, whilst hoarding shekels in the bank. If the farmers didn't make money, they would go out of business and we'd all be eating mass-produced food.

In any case, it is well known that these farmers subsidise their profits by growing illegal crops. How can 75% of the world's heroin come from Afghanistan when regular flights there have only recently been reinstated? The link between growing 'smuck', as it is known on the streets, and isolated rural communities such as Cumbria has been clearly established in the academic literature. And, as anybody who has ever had the misfortune to meet a 'weed'-eater will know, the paralysing effects of this drug well fit in with the bucolic surroundings which farmers spend all day gambolling in.

There is no need to discuss the vast subsidies that Western liberal governments, indebted to the massive farming lobby for much of their campaign finance, fork out to these farmers. It transpires that now some are being paid NOT to farm their land. Does Microsoft receive government subsidies or receive favours in exchange for donations? Of course not, since Microsoft is, has been proved again and again in the courts, a legitimate business entity, and not a closely knit association of organised criminals.

In short, I am fed up with hearing drug-addled farmers bemoaning their fate whilst making inflated profits and the expense of you and I, productive members of society who work for a living.

half of euro unions buget goes to farmers (suck on it shithead) the prices then gets pressed by 3 world countries. now we should get our onions for 10 pence a ton but no we send a helluva lot to africa and burn a lot to make the prices go up.

reasons why are taxes the cost of equipment and the 5 gallons a month of sum spray that fixes the stench.

the heroine in afghanistan is produced in that amount that smuggling it on to regular planes are an idiots operation here were talking bout loads a loads bus loads a little 2kg of roine isnt shit compared to whats produced so it comes to europe by land ways.

and a question in uk is it banned to have sex outside of the family your fucking brain must be a product of a 2000 years of incest and banging ones head into stonehenge begone bugger

Surpluses are very bad. They cause farmers to starve, which causes people to starve when there are no farmers left who are able to raise enough money to continue working. This is how famines happen. Surpluses are also a chief cause of unemployment. Limiting surpluses is incredibly wise. The alternative would be catastrophic.

*you* don't understand economics (none / 0) (#20)

by Anonymous Reader on Sat Sep 7th, 2002 at 05:54:00 PM PST

in a capitalist system, there will always be an equilibrium between supply (amount of food produced) and demand (amount people want to eat), unless gov't interferes or there are unexpected disasters etc.

If there were a shortage of food, prices would rise and new farmers would enter the business to capitalize on the high prices (and profits). If there were a surplus, farmers would have to lower prices to sell their inventory, and the extraneous farmers would consolidate, become more efficient, or find some other job.

when the gov't is a guaranteed to buy surplus (at above market prices) and pay farmers to not farm, it induces a lot of people to become farmers.

Or, an example you might relate to more easily, if your parents didn't let you live in the basement for free, you might go out and get a job.

Straight outta high school civics class (none / 0) (#22)

by Anonymous Reader on Sat Sep 7th, 2002 at 08:13:18 PM PST

You have no idea how the complexities of economic management really work. There is never an equilibrium between supply and demand. That only happens in the fairy land they talk about in high school. In the real world, there is movement towards an equilibrium point, but that is further complicated by the fact that there are many equilibrium points, and no guarantee that supply and demand are moving towards a point where you would like to be. Hence the need for governmental economic management, to prevent farms from going out of business in times of a glut on the market.

Considering the economic value of farming skills, and the difficulty in enticing people back to the country to learn those skills after they have left for the city, the government is doing exactly the right thing in keeping farmers on the farm.

If there were a surplus, farmers would have to lower prices to sell their inventory, and the extraneous farmers would consolidate, become more efficient, or find some other job.

No, they become poor and destitute, and they start a country band. You'll notice that there are no country bands singing about becoming more efficient and consolidating.

I completely agree, and I'd say more; farmers are the lowest social beeings in the whole human race. You can tell even communist bastards hate them, for they represent a part of our society which is poor and lazy but at the same time (poor and lazy would make them look good under communism) they are egoistic and conservative. I mean, conservative in the sense that they're opposed to any kind of technological or sociological change and that they only care on themselves and the easy-to-live life among their crops.

Farmers are to be extinguished. Nowadays we could trust on transgenicals and automatized growing of food, but government dickheads are so coward they just don't take the logical step: stopping this farmers from their useless way of life as they steal our resources by making themselves look "necessary" when they're not anymore. Their work can be automatized and it MUST be automatized, government must ban them from stealing anymore and we all know a more productive way on producing food could be easily taken.

When will a politic be brave enough to speak these truths and apply them?

I agree, farming should be done by robots. They would be controlled remotely from home workstations by computer hackers while they stuff their faces with slim jims and ranch cola and occaisonally move their obese bodies to grab a fresh oxygen tank. Or, alternately, the robots could be controlled by other, more intelligent, robots.

Obviously you live in the city. As far as you can see, your meat magically appears neatly wrapped in packages and your vegetable simply grow in baskets in the produce section of the corner supermarket.

No.

Farming is an endless cycle of back breaking labor. Yesterday was the communist inspired 'Labor Day', which, as is common with most things communist, involves sitting around doing nothing. While most of you city dwelling lay abouts were at home growing more and more corpulent, speeding along toward complete muscle atrophy, I was out in the fields tending my farm. My day progressed as follows:

0530 - Wake

0530-0545 - Attend to personal hygiene

0545-0600 - Consume breakfast prepared by wife

0600-0700 - Ensure the cows and goats have sufficient water and feed.

0700-0730 - Count cows. Count goats.

0730-0745 - Feed and water dogs.

0745-0800 - Feed and water turkey and geese.

0800-0830 - Travel fences. Mend as necessary.

0830-0900 - Collect eggs. Feed and water chickens.

0900-0930 - Slaughter two chickens, no longer producing acceptable number of eggs.

1645-1700 - Observe path of family of coyote. Commit to memory for next coyote hunting expedition.

1700-1715 - Check status of young calf. Administer medication.

1715-1830 - Visit leased land with children. Spray entire field. Tarp approximately 1 acre to shade. Mend area of fence where deer appear to be crossing. Build small treestand within bow range of crossing.

2130-2230 - Clean firearms used during the day. Secure weapons in safe room. Ensure that security system is functional and armed.

2230 - Sleep.

Obviously this was an unusually light day. Being as it was a communist holiday I did not want to attract undue attention by actually working. My wife argued that I would soon be sounding off on my devotion to the Red Army, but I didn't see the harm. Relative to the typical city dwelling, God hating, full on leftist, I feel I am safe.

Farmers work far more than most of you city types, apart from Sundays, when the majority of us refrain from work to honor God.

Watch out, you wrote the comment at 07:32 AM, hope the dogs aren't dead yet.

I ask again, I've red all the stuff you claim to do daily. Do you feel it as necessary? Even if I believed you have hard-word days, you've got to recognize most of your work could be automatized making you a useful resource for society.

Your message embodies everything I argued against farmers; lazy, egoistic and technologically conservative, so you can mantain your property against society at the same time that real workers and businessmen are doing jobs that cannot be automatically made by a technologically advanced society like ours; theirs - ours - are useful ways on working, and God knows it. No sunday God-honoring can make HIM forget that.

Now that's a more relaxing way to earn a taxpayer-subsidised crust. Wake up, check that it's windy, go back to sleep.

Now I Plow Only My Memories (5.00 / 9) (#15)

by Anonymous Reader on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 02:23:14 AM PST

For three generations my people have farmed the land in this country. My heart pumps listlessly with sorrow, for I fear mine is to be the last.

First came my Altpjere, across the sea from the town of Skaastvjaald, in his pocket only a handful of beet seeds and the deed to a patch of land he'd purchased with the last of his kroggjner, slung across his back the great digging-adze of his ancestors.

When he finally reached the tract that was his, Altpjere stripped down to only his felt boots and the great reindeer-hide kokkshjeeth that had been sewn by his mother. He seized up his great digging-adze, and rent long furrows in the rich black soil, planting as he went the beet seeds.

Three days he dug, sleeping standing up, drinking only rainwater, and eating only earth-worms and the occasional stray bluejay.

When he had finished sowing his land, Altpjere cut deep into the earth with his digging-adze, cleaving out vast slabs of thick mud from which he built a clay-hut, as his ancestors had since time immemorial. And he made a fire-hearth in the clay-hut, and slept there, and by hand sated his man-lust there, for at the time he had no woman or she-ox. And when the rains came the clay-hut washed away, and Altpjere had to dig out a new one, but his heart was full of joy.

And so the day came that Altpjere went into town to purchase a woman, having in his trouser pocket many dollars, for by this point Altpjere had made much money selling beets, beet-jam, and beet-wine, and had purchased a vast herd of musk-oxen, from which he obtained felt and ox-milk. Altpjere's trousers also contained a painful erection, for she-oxen can only get you so far.

And so Altpjere purchased a woman, and great was his disappointment when he learned that he had only obtained her services for one night, no "weird stuff". But Altpjere was skilled in the art of persuasion, as were the bardic folk of his ancestry, and he implored the rental-slut to be his wife and toil among the beets and the ox, and she agreed, for she was tired of sucking off barge piolts from Cleveland anyway.

And so the two made together a life, and Altpjere built a house of wood, that would not be washed away in by every passing thunderstorm, and his woman, my Altmjere bore him vast herds of offspring, among them my father.

And many were the children sliced into mulch-stuff by the talons of the plow, and many were the children crushed beneath the beet-heaps at harvest time, and many were the boys impaled on the horns of jealous bull-oxen protecting their females during rutting season, but many more still were those who grew up tall and strong and mostly symmetrical. And my Altpjere taught them all the ways of our people.

O, how my heart smiles when I think of those sun-filled days, when we would don our waterproof dung-boots, and sling over our shoulders the heft of the dung-sack, treading out to the fields, rythmically flinging handsful of ox-soil as we chanted the skaatsangje of our people.

After a hard day's toil, we would gather around the hearth, and Altpjere would delight us with folk tales of our people, great myths of Wotan and Freja, Bjalder, and JarJar, and loud were our peals of laughter when Altpjere recounted again the tale of Loki, the trickster, who stole the sacred reindeer-hide of the elf-dwarves, and of Thor, who tried to retrieve the hide, but failed, for Loki had hidden it under his eye-lid. So Thor stove in Loki's head with a giant's toenail, then sold Loki's pants and used the money to buy beer.

So long ago those days seem. Now the market for beet-jam and beet-wine is no longer what it was, and the price of ox-felt has been undercut by cheap Mongolian imports: our farm can no longer sustain us. So I will sell the land to an agricultural conglomerate, who will grow upon my Altpjere's fields genetically enhanced zucchini the size of refrigerators. And I will move with my wife to Big Sur, where we will live off our 401k's, grown fat off of federal subsidies, and learn how to pronounce Zinfandel.

But always, when I dream, it will be of the weight of the dung-sack, the rich smell of ox-soil, and the ringing chant of the skaatsangje, of those days long ago on my Altpjere's farm.

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